The present invention relates to a method of and apparatus for controlling the flow of granular media, and more particularly, the flow of metallic granular media in shot-peening equipment. Such shot-peening equipment may handle magnetic or non-magnetic, ferrous or non-ferrous, and other, media.
Devices currently available and used to control flow in shot-peening equipment are limited to magnetic materials. For instance, a permanent magnet is placed in the conduit supplying the shot, and a so-called bucking coil is used to overcome the magnet's field to allow magnetic media to flow, or actually fall by gravity. A magnetic-type mass flow sensor located below this assembly provides flow information to an electronic control which adjusts the power to the bucking coil.
Presently, there exists no method of or means for non-destructively inspecting the quality of shot-peened areas of a component or article. Therefore, the value of the shot-peening process is limited by the degree of confidence the user has in the process itself.
Some existing machinery of the latest design utilizes some elements of current technology to control some aspects of the process but, to date, there has been no overall process that utilizes the full benefits of shot-peening.